Chennai (The Hawk): Indian Institute of Technology Madras is establishing a new research centre that will test wastewater in a city for indicator organisms and chemicals and make the data available to the public. The facility will act as an intelligence unit to track and prevent a virus outbreak in its early stages.
The International Centre for Clean Water (ICCW) is establishing this Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) research facility. This project is being supported with funding of US$ 1 Million by CryptoRelief, an initiative started by Mr Sandeep Nailwal. The data obtained from various wastewater sources and treatment facilities will be analyzed and made available to the public through dashboards. Gradually, this facility will be extended to other parts of India.The benefits of wastewater analysis include water fingerprinting to study the chemical and biological molecules in it. The WBE project includes aspects such as tracking pollutants, pesticides, licit and illicit drugs to which the population is exposed.Highlighting the impact of this project, Prof. T. Pradeep, a Padma Shri Awardee and
Professor-in-Charge, International Centre for Clean Water (ICCW), IIT Madras, said , “Ensuring clean water for people needs a detailed understanding of wastewater. The ICCW team will work on building a hydro-informatics platform for the city with appropriate modelling tools to give spatiotemporal information of the data derived from WBE studies.” The WBE will also be employed to detect the emerging issues of concern, such as increasing antimicrobial resistance due to excessive consumption of antibiotics. Identifying the right policies to control pharmaceuticals and personal care products will be of great value in improving public health.
ICCW has been developing state-of-the-art technologies for affordable clean water. Creating a reliable platform for periodic analysis of wastewater will ensure better water security for the community. IIT Madras and ICCW envision providing practical solutions to build a healthier country through wastewater-based epidemiology research Speaking about this project, Mr. Sandeep Nailwal, Founder CryptoRelief, said, “We intend to help the public, policymakers, practitioners and public health officials combat the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic through wastewater analysis.” The CryptoRelief fund has successfully been funding several healthcare-related ctivities in the country.
This grant would help in advanced research and getting a foresight into the ever-evolving virus patterns whilst also giving us a chance to better prepare. With the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, it has been challenging to understand its transmission. This calls for a better understanding of the population's health to predict and control the disease spread, be it a pandemic or an endemic and this new centre at IIT Madras will tackle this need Wastewater carries molecules that correlate to what people consume and how their health is changing. At an individual or household level, toilet waste can tell a lot about the user. For a city, the sewage gives information about the health of its inhabitants. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a way to understand this and may be considered as mining of chemical
information from sewage. Apart from SARS Cov-2, several other pathogens prevailing in a population can be detected through analysis of wastewater. Techniques for analysis include polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) and mass spectrometry (MS), combined with data analytics.
IN COVID SUPPORT FZE LLC a.k.a. Crypto Relief was announced on 24th April 2021 during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Crypto Relief is the result of the global crypto community mobilizing to help India combat the COVID19 crisis, and to help it prepare for future outbreaks. We crossed $3 million in donations across all crypto assets in our first 72 hours. Crypto Relief Fund's mission is set to ensure complete transparency and compliance with existing laws with regard to empowering important healthcare projects in India.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) was established in 1959 by the Government of India as an ‘Institute of National Importance.’ The activities of the Institute in various fields of Science and Technology are carried out in 16 academic departments and several advanced interdisciplinary research academic centres. The Institute offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes leading to B.Tech., M.Sc., M.B.A., M.Tech., M.S., and Ph.D., degrees in a variety of specialisations. IITM is a residential institute with more than 600 faculty and 9,500 students. Students from 18 countries are enrolled here. IITM fosters an active entrepreneurial culture with strong curricular support and through the IITM Incubation Cell.
Recognized as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) in 2019, IITM has been ranked No.1 in the ‘Overall’ Category for the third consecutive year in India Ranking 2021 released by National Institutional Ranking Framework, Ministry of Education, Govt. of India. The Institute has also been ranked No.1 in the ‘Engineering Institutions’ category in the same Rankings for six consecutive years – from 2016 to 2021. It was also adjudged as the ‘Top innovative Institution’ in the country in Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) in 2019, 2020 and 2021. ARIIA Ranking was launched by the Innovation Cell of Ministry of Education.
